Hoofbeats of Montfort’s departing horse were muffled by the thin snow lying on the yard. Arms wrapped about herself as if for warmth, though Domina Edith’s parlor was as warm as might be, Frevisse stood watching from the window as they went out through the gateway, dark shapes formless in cloaks, only Meg’s white headcloth making her different from the men around her, and then all of them gone and the yard empty.
Everyone was gone now. The players had left at daybreak, with hope of making Oxford tomorrow in time for the Twelfth Night revels. The guesthalls were empty and she had no duties there until more guests came. Frevisse felt hollow and cold, and no thoughts or fire seemed likely to fill or warm her anytime soon.
“But how did she get those things out of the church without being seen?” asked Dame Claire.
“Who notices servants?” asked Domina Edith.
Dame Frevisse nodded. “And the only people in the church were Dame Perpetua and Sister Amicia, concentrating on their prayers over Sister Fiacre. At most, they noticed it was Meg, not what she was doing.”
Domina Edith, standing beside her, turned away shaking her head. “All that happening inside the woman and we never knew it.”
“Until too late,” Frevisse said. Her words sounded dull in her ears, hollow like the rest of her. “I was too late.”
Domina Edith had accepted Dame Claire’s arm and begun moving toward her chair, but she paused and reached out to lay her thin, veined hand on Frevisse’s arm. “You were sooner than any of us,” she said gently.
“I should have—” Known something. Seen something. Guessed something. Not been so involved with proving one man innocent or in scoring against Montfort that she did not see the pattern behind it all. “I should have known,” she insisted.
“That’s pride, Dame, and a sin. How would you have known?”
Frevisse met Domina Edith’s aged eyes and was held silent by them, trying to see into herself the way the prioress seemed to. She finally said, “I don’t know.”
“Nor does anyone else but God. What’s in your hand?”
Frevisse had forgotten she was holding anything. Now at Domina Edith’s gentle question she brought her hand in front of her and opened her fingers to show a few pieces of dried orange peel. “Father Henry found them on the hearthstones by Meg’s fire when he went to her cottage to bring what few things she might need in Banbury. He wasn’t sure what they were but brought them to her, and she gave some to me when I last spoke with her. She said—”
Domina Edith and Dame Claire waited but Frevisse shook her head. Later she might be able to repeat Meg’s saying, “Take some for a remembrance of me.” But not now.
Domina Edith moved away to her chair, leaning on Dame Claire’s arm. “She spoke with Father Henry, too?” she asked.
Dame Claire answered that. “She confessed to him last night. She was very insistent that she must.”
“I would suppose so,” Domina Edith sighed, sinking down into her chair.
“But not about the deaths,” Dame Claire said.
“And how would you be knowing that?” Domina Edith asked.
“Because she told me when I took her the sleeping draught to give her one night’s rest before we gave her over into Master Montfort’s keeping.”
“She seemed to want everyone to be very sure no trouble came from her one sin,” Frevisse said. “She told me, too.”
“Her one sin?” Disbelief and questioning were in Domina Edith’s voice.
Frevisse nodded. “She lied about seeing Joliffe near the church the day Sister Fiacre died. She said it because she wanted him to suffer something for hurting Sym. But lying is a sin and she wished to confess it. Father Henry refused her absolution, of course, because she is not penitent over the murders.”
Domina Edith sighed and looked down at her lap. “They’ll hang her in Banbury, shriven or not.”
“They will,” Frevisse agreed, looking down at her own folded hands.
Meg’s holding would probably go to Gilbey Dunn, her cottage and goods to someone in the village.
And the only words Frevisse had had with the players before they left for Oxford were of cheerful thanks and farewells and half a promise to come this way again sometime.
Meanwhile…She raised her head and said, “Sister Thomasine was coughing in the cloister walk this morning. I think she’s taken the rheum.”
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